Monday, August 08, 2016

Mullica's Loss & How Christie's "Fairness Formula" Hurts Poorer Disricts


Excerpts
As Gov. Chris Christie promotes his new “fairness formula” for school funding, a selling point he stresses to suburban residents is how wasteful the urban districts have been with the billions of dollars they have received.

But a report released last week by Bruce Baker and Mark Weber for the New Jersey Education Policy Forum found that in terms of operating in a cost-efficient manner, some Jersey Shore districts are far less efficient than urban ones. The report notes that while Asbury Park is commonly cited as the model of inefficiency, it ranks a distant second to the tiny Cape May County school district in Avalon, which in 2014-15 spent more than  $57,000 per student in budgeted operating costs. The state average was about $14,700.

Still, Avalon would get an extra $250,000 in state aid under the governor’s funding plan, which would allocate $6,599 per student to every district, with no distinction for wealth. Annual property-tax savings would be about $34.

While the governor has been traveling to suburban towns like Fair Lawn in Bergen County, where the average taxpayer would save more than $2,200, state Senate President Stephen Sweeney has been taking his own Formula 4 Success to districts that would be hurt by the Christie plan and benefit from his.
Entire article at
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/education/who-spends-school-funds-more-efficiently-cities-or-shore-towns/article_ee68d28a-5c2a-11e6-835a-873f2bd30f3a.html

Christie's plan is GAINING support from the richer districts

Under Christie's Plan
Mullica would lose $ 463,122
GEHR  would lose $ 9,630,713
EHC    would lose $ 1,723,439
 (chart included at bottom of post)

The Democrats Plan "Formula 4 Success" would fund all districts at 100% of the formula and Mullica would benefit from that plan. We would have to get more information to find out how much.

As stated in the minutes of the 7/12 /16 Mullica Twp Committee Meeting, this year alone, we will have an increase of 10.5 cents for GEHR and 0.5 cents for our school. The county rate is up to 8.4 cents and municipal is a 2.6 cent increase.

Mullica's 2016 overall rate is a whopping 22 cent increase and that's still WITH the state school aid.

 If Christie's plan is put on the ballot in 2017 and passed by the voters, we will be facing an unheard of tax increase to replace the lost aid for GEHR and the Mullica school plus pay for the future normal yearly increases for health insurances, contracts, raises, gas, etc. plus whatever the county decides to throw at us. In addition, we have a revaluation hanging over our heads which could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

 7/12/16 minutes excerpt below
Department of Revenue & Finance: Mayor Brown reported the following: The Township received the 2016
tax rate, which is an overall increase of 22 cents. This equates to a $220 increase for a home assessed at
$100,000. The total County rate increased 8.4 cents, GEHR School rate increase 10.5 cents, local school
increase was .5 cents and the municipal increase was 2.6 cents. Committee discussed and expressed their
concerns with this increase and our 2017 budget. Mr. Silva suggested Ms. Stollenwerk review the budgets and
pension obligations. Mayor suggested a budget update as well.
http://ecode360.com/documents/MU0269/public/253210076.pdf

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/school-funding-formula/pdf_d638527c-5b48-11e6-b2fa-3b5196e9f424.html
 School funding formula
Related post
http://gadfly01.blogspot.com/2016/06/christies-flat-school-aid-plan.html


 

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